AMERICA will hold direct talks with the Taliban within the next few days – before similar talks between the Afghan president and the Islamist hardliners.

The first meeting between US officials and the armed extremists is due to take place in Qatar, where the Taliban are hoping to open an office.

Yesterday, Afghan president Hamid Karzai also admitted his government will hold peace talks there with the Taliban.

Both announcements came as Karzai’s troops – mostly trained by British and American forces – took over responsibility for security in Afghanistan.

The handover came in the 12th year of the Afghan war, which has claimed the lives of 444 British military personnel.

British troops have fought a bitter campaign in Helmand Province since 2006, when the Paras and Marines stormed the Islamist stronghold.

The US-Taliban talks announcement came on the day NATO handed over security for the whole of Afghanistan to government forces.

One of the most controversial topics of the US-Taliban summit will be whether the Pakistan-led Taliban agree to put down their guns.

It also means they will have to renounce the abuse and punishment of women and violence towards ethnic minorities such as Afghan Hazaras.

Hazara – whose communities are largely based in central Afghanistan – fear they will be murdered in a wave of Taliban violence after NATO pull out.

Yesterday, a former security minister for Afghanistan warned the Taliban will retake swathes of the country after western forces leave.

General Khodaidad suggested parts of the Pashtu south, where British troops are based, could be back in Taliban hands within months.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced at a ceremony in Kabul yesterday that his country’s troops would take over security, paving the way for a NATO withdrawal in 18 months.

Defence Secretary Philip Hammond hailed the handover as a “hard-fought milestone” and insisted the country was able to look after itself.

He said: “The Afghanistan our combat forces leave at the end of 2014 will not be perfect but will be able to stand independently and will never again provide a haven for terrorists to attack the West.”

But General Khodaidad said the Afghan security forces were not capable of defeating the insurgents.

He said: “In another six months, one year, the Afghan National Army cannot control Afghanistan for the long term. Some part of Afghanistan will fall to the Taliban.”

His warning came as Britain’s most senior commander in the country, Lieutenant-General Nick Carter, admitted too many Afghan soldiers are quitting.

Around 50,000 leave the fledgling fighting force each year. He said the Taliban were still capable of mounting “spectacular attacks” but insisted Afghan forces were “quite capable of seeing them out”.

But Sir Richard Sherard Cowper-Coles, a former British Ambassador to Afghanistan, attacked the decision to go to war in the first place.

He said the government were deluding themselves if they thought the Afghan National Army could cope once the West pulled out.

He said: “The idea that the country is going to be pacified, subdued by the Afghan forces is, I’m afraid, a delusion which we need to put out in order to justify walking off the pitch halfway through the game.”

Yesterday, British top brass revealed the multi-million-pound operation to bring back military equipment before the end of next year is one of the most complex they have ever faced.

Brigadier Duncan Capps, who is in charge of the operation, said: “Afghanistan is very hot and it is high. It is an unrelenting environment. And it does not have a port.”

He said the fact Afghanistan was landlocked made bringing home equipment more difficult than the operation to do the same from Iraq and the Balkans.

Our military material will be returned to the UK over the coming months, much of it by road through Pakistan, and a small amount will leave by road through the north of Afghanistan.

All of Britain’s vehicles will travel back to the UK by air for security reasons.